LH3’s New Search Engine “Juice”

Search engine presence plays a critical role in ensuring that individuals searching for legal help online find their way to LawHelp.org’s resources. LH3 includes a number of enhancements to boost the visibility of LawHelp resources within Google, Bing and other search engines. Here are some of the changes that add more SEO “juice” to LH3:

LH3 URLs use keyword-based identifiers rather than the numeric IDs used on LH2. This means search engines can more easily match a user’s search with keywords used in LH3 page and resource titles. Keywords are used in URLs for topic, category, channel, resource and other pages throughout the site.

Browser page titles are contexual to the page the user is on. For example, they show the channel, resource, category name, etc. These page titles help to better describe to search engines the content of deep links on the site.

LH3’s page markup was designed to be semantic to better accommodate search engines. Page headings are widely used to identify the titles of sections, with the main content area receiving the highest heading.

The accessibility of content to search engines is not dependent on Javascript or browser cookies.

Each site is registered with Google Webmaster which allows us to view the site as Google’s bot sees it, which enhances our ability to make changes based on how the Google Bot is indexing the site and respond to any issues.

While we’re optimistic about the impact these improvements will have, content and marketing are still king when it comes to search engine presence. Fortunately, LawHelp/NY has put together a great toolkit on how programs can expand their online online outreach, including developing keyword lists, optimizing content and link-building. The Toolkit includes a marketing dashboard to track your efforts. Download the Non-Profit Guide to Internet Marketing to learn more.